Women deserve better than watered down strength training…

PT session at my studio in Hildenborough.

What if keeping up isn’t the goal?

I've been thinking a lot recently about exercise-to-music classes and why they remain such a popular choice for women.

You might remember I used to teach baby-wearing workouts at one point, so I completely understand the appeal. You turn up, somebody tells you what to do, there's good music, good energy, and you leave feeling like you've done something positive for yourself. For many women, particularly those juggling work, family, caring responsibilities and everything else life throws at us, that hour can feel so valuable and enjoying your movement matters so much.

What I think is worth exploring though is whether these classes are giving you the outcome you think they're giving you.  Are you getting what you think you are, from the time you are investing?

Many of these classes use light weights and are built around the beat of the music. The pace is set for you and everyone moves together. The challenge is often keeping up with the rhythm, following the choreography and moving continuously from one exercise to the next. There is absolutely a skill to that, and there are absolutely cardiovascular benefits, coordination benefits and the feel-good factor that comes from moving with other people.

But when women tell me they are strength training because they attend these classes, that's where I want to help women to understand strength training more.

The reason is that strength training looks very different from what most of us have been led to believe. The first thing you will notice is that strength training is comparatively very slow, versus aerobic workouts using light weights.

When your movement is tied to the beat of a song, the pace often dictates the weight you can use. The faster the movement, the lighter the weight generally needs to be. It's difficult to challenge strength when you're rushing from one repetition to the next because your focus naturally shifts towards keeping time, or keeping up with the person next to you, rather than properly challenging ourselves and producing force.

It can also mean we don't spend much time exploring the full range of movement available to us. Think about a squat for a moment. How often are you really encouraged to slow down, find your depth, pause, breathe right, feel where the work is happening and gradually build confidence there, challenge yourself with appropriate stimulus/weights? Or a lunge. How often do you have the opportunity to really own the position, build strength through the entire movement and develop control at the bottom of the exercise?

Most of the time we're simply moving on to the next repetition. The aerobic component isn’t wrong, but it’s really important to bear in mind that they do not have a muscle building objective. I am going to caveat that, because I can hear jeers from the crowd, yes body weight and light weights can help maintain muscle and it is better than nothing.  But you are capable of banking so much more muscle in this time you are dedicating. If we are talking in a money sense, your time invested needs to have maximum value. We are looking at getting the best interest rate for our money, not letting it tick along in a current account and the value of that money degrades over time.

The challenge is that women have spent decades being sold exercise that looks very different to the way men are encouraged to train. We are painted as needing music, aerobics, light weights, matching co-ords.  Men have been generally introduced to the idea of getting stronger from a young age. We should have been sold that too, but for women the emphasis has been different.  Men have been told they have potential to lift heavy weights.  Women have been encouraged to keep the weights light, keep going and that’s enough. Men have known that strength matters and women are often told that calories and size (taking up less space) matter.

Of course that is changing thankfully, but I still see the legacy of those messages every time someone comes and trains with me. Women who have been attending classes for years and who genuinely believe they aren't capable of lifting heavier weights. Then we start working together, we slow things down, we focus on technique, we give the body time to learn, and within a few weeks they're doing things they never thought possible. Stuff they had completely written off being able to do, because they didn’t think they were strong/capable enough. The strength space is not reserved for men, and I really want to help women understand that and confidently step into it.

I help reframe strength training…

We have been conditioned to believe that exercise only counts if it leaves us sweaty, breathless and completely exhausted. That if we’re not rushing, we’re somehow not working hard enough. That if we’re resting between sets, we’re wasting time. The resting part is vital.

Some of the most effective strength training sessions can feel surprisingly calm. When you train with me in the studio, there’s no high tempo music (unless you want it).  We train to playlists like Good Energy on Spotify.

You perform a set. You recover. You perform another set. You recover again. You pay attention to how the movement feels. We gradually build load over time. You allow your muscles, bones, tendons and nervous system to adapt. It isn't all that flashy I’m afraid! But what you will build up to doing in the future, from your investment, will be admired by younger generations and your peers and I hope you become very comfortable about boasting about your gains! Just like @trainwithjoan!

I know we are under a lot of pressure in midlife and competing responsibilities. I hate making feel they need to jump, when you are likely already overloaded. But as we move through our late thirties, forties, fifties and beyond, the type of training I have talked about here, is essential and we must creating a sense of urgency to incorporate this into our lives, if we haven’t yet.  Building and maintaining muscle mass. Supporting bone health. Preserving power and balance. Being able to get up and down from the floor with ease. Carrying shopping, lifting luggage, gardening, playing with children and grandchildren. These are the things that strength training helps us do. It is not too late to start. My newest client is 66. She joins a host of women in their 60’s trying this for the first time.

Sorry, back on track… I don't want is for women to miss out on those true strength training benefits because they've been misled that strength training is simply moving a light weight quickly to music.

They're not the same thing.

If you love your classes, keep going. Enjoy them for what they are. Enjoy the community, the energy and the movement. But if your goal is to become stronger, build muscle, improve bone health or future-proof your body for the decades ahead, it may be worth asking whether you have some dedicated strength training in your week too and if you don’t - I’d like to put two of my offerings out there which can help you do that.

Number one is Smart Move…

I wanted women to experience strength training differently. To learn that they don't need to rush. To understand that progression matters and results take time. To discover that they are often capable of lifting much heavier than they realise. To move in a way that builds confidence and ticks the boxes of supporting what we need as we get older.  It's the programme I follow myself; focusing on strength, power, athleticism, recovery and longevity.  And if the words strength, power and athleticism make you feel that’s not you, because you are too old now, or that’s not you - I promise you it is. There’s a strong powerful athlete inside each of us.

The next intake opens in October and the waitlist is already growing - if you want to be part of that, or at least be on the waiting list to get the prompt to join - please register here.

If you would like to join me as a personal training or group strength client - please click through here.

Current availability from September 14th:

Monday 10:30am
Tuesday 10:45am and 1:45pm.

And if you're not sure whether your current training is helping you achieve what you want it to achieve, what it needs to achieve, and want my view on this, please do send me a message.  You don’t have to be even considering one of my programmes - I love talking about this stuff and helping women work out how to make the most of that precious time they invest in themselves.

Thank so much for reading.

Emma x

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